Joshua Bennett asks at my EPJ post, The Chinese Plan to Put 300 Million Chinese in Africa and Takeover the Continent:
I would think the US would go to full out war to prevent this, since it would put them on the door step of the Middle East, and obviously Africa is rich in natural resources.
Interesting thing I hadn’t thought about really, are the military operations the US has going on in Africa to supposedly fight terrorist there, actually operations to prevent the Chinese from gaining a foothold there by building a military presence of their (US military) own?
Do your objections to the Chinese doing this have anything to do with a possible US response RW?RW response:
I am sure that US military activity in Africa is done in part to counter Chinese expansion in the area. And as Target Liberty readers know, I am no fan of US military activities.
However, my primary objection to Chinese expansion in Africa is the strong likelihood that the Chinese government will introduce extreme tracking of Africans, and other totalitarian measures, if they are behind the advance in Africa rather than private Chinese entrepreneurs. The government is already testing "social scores" and facial recognition in China itself. I would hate to see these type of measures gain a foothold on an entire continent.
I have no objection to individual Chinese investors making investments on the continent (or traveling there) but government efforts would be much more sinister. Doug Casey appears to be in the camp that views what is going on as a Chinese government operation:
They loan money to some backward African government to build a port, railroad, and airport, or what have you. The Africans can almost never pay those loans back, so the Chinese – as part of the deal – take over the facility and staff it with their own people. This is actually going on today. If the African leaders don’t like it – unlikely since they’ve pocketed millions under the table for facilitating the deal – they will likely find their lives are in danger. If that doesn’t work, the country may have a visit from the Red Army.The Chinese government effort would not be an attempt to let free markets emerge. It could very well be the first stages of an attempt to enslave all of Africa.
-RW
The Chinese government is locked in a resource-intensive, internal struggle at home to keep its citizens enslaved (and appears unable to deal even with just Hong Kong as it might prefer). It would be stretched very thin to do the same over large areas of Africa, particularly given distance and cultural differences.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a stretch to me too. I dont necessarily want to discourage it either since more enemies for China keeps them juggling.
DeleteI have an aunt who is a missionary to China, not sure which province, Ethiopia, and Kenya, splitting time between them. I’ll have to ask her if she sees any of this. Thanks for the reply Robert.
ReplyDelete"The Africans can almost never pay those loans back, so the Chinese – as part of the deal – take over the facility and staff it with their own people."
ReplyDeleteOMG!!! The Chicoms are behaving like...Citibank!
Sounds like the Chicoms are perfecting what we've been doing for decades, according to John Perkins's book.
ReplyDelete